Later on these daring forerunners of civilization were followed by settlers, who, with their families, established the first permanent homes: single log houses and hamlets, like little islands in the vast ocean of the primeval forest.
These "backwoodsmen," completely isolated from the civilized world and compelled to wage constant battle with hostile nature as well as with ferocious savages and wild animals, have been justly glorified as heroes. They were at once explorers, carpenters, builders, woodmen, farmers, breeders, trappers, hunters and fighters,—in short, everything.
THE FIRST CABIN.
But their wives and daughters, who accompanied them, certainly deserve to be honored too, as one can hardly conceive situations more trying than those which these courageous women had to face.
First of all there were the daily labors of the household and farm, the unceasing cares of motherhood, the toils and sufferings in times of drought or sickness. Because of the isolation of their homesteads, void of even the slightest comforts and improvements, these women had to toil from early morning till late in the night. They worked with their husbands, clearing the lands. They planted and raised the vegetables in the little kitchen gardens. They prepared the meals, baked the bread, did the washing and scrubbing, the milking, preserving, pickling, churning and brewing. They also broke and heckled the flax, from which they spun the linens. They sheared the sheep and transformed the wool into yarn and cloth, which they dyed, cut and turned into suits and dresses. They knitted the socks and underwear, made the candles and many of the furnishings, in short, they produced whatever the family needed and consumed, giving all and asking little. They even helped to defend the cabin and the settlement in times of danger.
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